?ExxonMobil Corp. is buying into Falcon Oil & Gas Ltd.’s tight-gas play in Hungary’s Mako Trough. The major will pay Falcon $25 million for a two-thirds interest in 75% of Falcon’s 246,000-acre production license. Additionally, ExxonMobil will spend $50 million on testing and drilling on the property.
Depending on results of initial work, the major can elect to pay Falcon another $50 million and spend $100 million on further evaluation work.
The Mako Trough holds more than 20,000 feet of sediments, including thick, overpressured sands in the Miocene Szolnok and Endrod formations. For several years, Falcon has been exploring what it believes to be a basin-center gas accumulation within the trough.
The deal does not include nearly 400,000 acres that Falcon holds outside the contract area, or shallow rights on a portion of the land within the contract area.
Falcon is a British Columbia corporation with headquarters in Denver. It operates in Hungary through its subsidiary, TXM Energy LLC.

?1 Canada
Husky Energy Inc., Calgary, has received government approvals to develop North Amethyst Field, a satellite to its White Rose development in the Jeanne d’Arc Basin, offshore Newfoundland. North Amethyst contains some 70 million bbl. of proved and probable recoverable reserves. First production will be late 2009 or early 2010. Eleven subsea wells will be drilled at North Amethyst and tied back to a floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel. Husky operates White Rose and satellite fields, and Petro-Canada is its partner. Additionally, the government of Newfoundland and Labrador has a 5% equity interest.

2 Canada
A Utica shale play is developing in Quebec. Denver-based Forest Oil Corp. unveiled the Utica in a recent analyst meeting. The Utica is 500 feet thick and occurs at between 2,300 and 6,000 feet in Forest’s area, which stretches from Montreal to Quebec City. The play offers several attractive features: excellent rock properties, low acreage costs and proximity to premium gas markets. According to Forest, net resource potential on its 339,000 gross acres totals 4.1 trillion cu. ft. of gas. Average gas in place is 93 billion cu. ft. per section. To date, the company has drilled two vertical wells that tested at rates up to 1 million cu. ft. per day. The gas is 88% to 97% methane, and between 1,027 and 1,136 Btu. This year, the company plans three horizontal wells with 2,000-ft. laterals, and four stimulations per well. The horizontals are budgeted at up to $4 million each. If the concept works, Forest will kick off full-scale development in 2010.

3 Canada
Houston-based Apache Corp.’s Canadian unit has drilled three horizontal wells in the Muskwa shale in the Ootla area of northeastern British Columbia. The company tested its wells at rates of 8.8-, 6.1- and 5.3 million cu. ft. of gas per day. Each was fracture-stimulated with multiple treatments. Ootla is about 60 miles from Fort Nelson. Apache began acquiring acreage in the area in 2000, and completed the first producing well from the Muskwa shale during the 2005 winter season. Apache and EnCana Corp., Calgary, have formed an area of mutual interest, controlling more than 400,000 acres at the center of the play. Apache’s net interest is 207,000 acres. EnCana has drilled, but not yet completed, two horizontal wells in the area, and is drilling a third.

4 Brazil
Brazilian state company Petrobras has laid out its plan to develop Tupi, its supergiant subsalt discovery in the offshore Santos Basin, reports Bernstein Research. Tupi is a deepwater discovery that contains between 5- and 8 billion bbl. of recoverable oil. Phase I will comprise an extended well test in 2009 from the two original wells. Flow rates will be 30,000 bbl. per day. The second phase will involve an extended pilot production test with two additional wells, and possibly a gas- and water injector. Volumes are expected to reach 100,000 bbl. per day. If results are as expected, Petrobras will move to full production in 2013. Peak volumes could be 750,000 bbl. per day, to be achieved sometime around 2017.

5 U.K.
BP Plc and partner Mara­thon Oil report an oil discovery in Block 204/23 in the West of Shetlands area. Exploration well 204/23-2 was drilled on the South-West Foinaven prospect, some 190 kilometers west of the Shetland Islands. It reached a total depth of 2,528 meters. The partners are evaluating the discovery and the potential for a two-well subsea development, tied back to the Foinaven floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO), some 11 kilometers away. The find is in License P1263, held 72% by BP and 28% by Marathon.

6 Algeria
Norwegian firm StatoilHydro has made another gas discovery in its Hassi Mouina license in Gourara Basin. The find, in Lower Cretaceous and Upper Devonian sandstones, is the fourth in the concession. The well was drilled on Block 321b near Timimoun, about 800 kilometers southwest of Algiers. StatoilHydro has a 75% interest in Hassi Mouina, and Algerian national oil company Sonatrach has 25%. The partners say further drilling is needed to explore the 23,000-sq.-kilometer license, and they have spudded a fifth wildcat.

7 Pakistan
Calgary-based explorer Niko Resources has been awarded a 100% interest in four blocks in the Indus Delta offshore Pakistan. The company says its 11,000 sq. kilometers of licenses cover the second-largest submarine fan in the world. The offshore Indus-X 2465-3 EL, Indus-Y 2465-4 EL, Indus-Z 2466-6 EL and Indus North 2466-7 EL blocks are the company’s first venture in Pakistan. Water depths range from transition zones to some 200 meters. The initial term of the exploration period is five years, and Niko has agreed to acquire a minimum of 200 sq. kilometers of 3-D seismic in each block during that time.

8 India
Gas flowed at the rate of 38.1 million cu. ft. per day on a 120/64-in. choke at a Pleistocene discovery made by Reliance Industries in the offshore Krishna-Godavari Basin, reports IHS Inc. The KG-V-D3-A1 (Dhirubhai 39) well was drillstem-tested between 1,565-85 meters. Drilled in 716 meters of water, it reached a total depth of 1,937 meters and encountered 84 meters of gross pay in a clastic reservoir.
A second exploration well, KG-V-D3-B-1, has been spudded to evaluate Pleistocene and late-Middle Miocene sandstones, as the deepwater-fan complex is expected to cover a large area of the 3,288-sq.-kilometer block. Reliance operates the block and holds a 90% interest; U.K. firm Hardy Exploration & Production has the balance.

9 Thailand
Chevron Corp. and partners have given the official go-ahead for the Platong II gas-development project in the shallow Gulf of Thailand for a total cost of around $3.1 billion. The development will add 420 million cu. ft. per day of gas-processing capacity. Start-up is scheduled for early 2011. Chevron is operator and holds a 69.8% stake; Mitsui Oil Exploration has 27.4% and PTTEP, 2.8%. Platong Gas II will allow Chevron to reach its goal of supplying up to 1.2 billion cu. ft. of gas per day to Thailand by 2012 from its operated blocks 10, 11, 12 and 13.

10 Indonesia
Marathon Oil is back in Indonesia after an absence of more than a decade. The company is focused on Pasangkaya Block in Makassar Strait off Kalimantan. It will soon start a large 3-D seismic shoot on the block, which it operates and in which it holds a 70% interest. Additionally, it has formed a rig pool with StatoilHydro, Talisman Energy, ENI, Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and ConocoPhillips to share a contract on a deepwater drillship. Marathon expects to spud its first well on the concession in 2009.

11 Australia
Chevron Corp. plans to develop a new Australian liquefied natural gas project sourced from its 100%-owned Wheatstone discovery in the Carnarvon Basin, offshore Western Australia. Wheatstone was discovered in 2004 and is 145 kilometers offshore around 200 meters of water. The initial phase of the development will tap an estimated 4.5 trillion cu. ft. of gas in the two Chevron-operated permits that include Wheatstone.